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Foreigners less likely to get jobs than Germans

The Local Germany
The Local Germany - [email protected]
Foreigners less likely to get jobs than Germans
A woman walks past a German job centre in Saxony. Photo: DPA

Foreigners from outside the EU suffer from a much lower employment rate in Germany than native citizens and EU immigrants, a study confirmed on Wednesday.

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German citizens enjoy some of Europe's top employment rates, a study released by EU statistics office Eurostat showed.

But non-EU immigrants in the country are lagging behind natives by almost 20 percentage points, suggesting serious discrepancies for foreigners gaining access to Germany's labour market.

At 78.7, Germany has the second highest employment rate among 20 to 64-year-olds in the EU after Sweden. It is almost ten points higher than the EU-wide average of 68.9.

For foreigners, including those from other EU member states living in Germany, the average employment rate drops to 65, still three points higher than the EU-wide figure of 61.9.

But if only non-EU citizens in Germany are counted, the employment rate drops down to just 58.5 percent, a discrepancy of 20 percentage points when compared with locals.

The figures suggest non-EU citizens have a much harder time gaining access to the job market than locals or even EU citizens from other member states.

Within the EU, Germany shows the sixth biggest difference between employment of citizens and non-EU foreigners after Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Finland.

Of the 27 countries included in the study, only Cyprus, Czech Republic, Lithuania and Italy had higher employment figures for non-EU citizens than for natives.

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